Online community Stardoll unrolls a virtual red carpet for the Academy Awards. For the teeny bopper demo (or girls at heart like Mariah), Stardoll is a candy-sweet space for creating Oscars-themed scenes with - wait for it - virtual paparazzi and Joan Rivers avatars. It ain't the Oscars without invasive camera angles and loud blondes straddling perpetual midlife crises so we smile upon the stab at authenticity.
"We hope to usher in a new generation of kids who want to try their hand at fashion in a way that is fun, creative and a bit friendlier than an internship at Vogue," says CEO Mattias Miksche. After seeing The Devil Wears Prada, we find this noble indeed.
In addition to playing with Oscar nominee avatars and making adamant suggestions about who should win (most favor Kate over Penelope!), girls make their own avatars and craft campaigns to become the next Stardoll cover girl, an honour doled out by the community.
Stardoll stikes us as an awesome resource. While we'd like to suggest it as such, the imagined execution (admen trolling the Pretty in Pink section) is not cute. Resist the urge to channel dormant XX chromosomes. We're sure you know a little girl you can foist this job upon.
It was only a matter of time before Wrigley's Candystand, whose candy-tagged games get progressively better, would start testing waters in real gamer territory.
Candystand and Wii just joined forces in a bizarre cross-branding where Wii web games are peddled on Candystand and Candystand is totally accessible through the Wii browser.
The relationship isn't exactly low-key - within 24 hours of launching on Wii's Internet Channel, Wii.Candystand.com drew 6000 visitors and a ton of positive reviews. That is, according to Scott Tannen, Wrigley's director of global digital marketing.
This is the first branded site to link to the Wii browser, which will definitely get competitors sniffing at the door to be next in line. Candystand's content offerings are also formatted for television instead of computer monitors.
Kudos to Wrigley for creating a series of branded offerings that seem able to stand alone in gaming world. It hasn't been an easy trek, considering Candystand was first introduced in '97 - building this kind of recognition takes time. Just ask Target.
We still harbor doubts that our Socom buddies would be deeply impressed to hear we destroy the competition on Altoids Sheep, though.
With its classic Jerry Bruckheimer movie-sounding theme music (which draws us in every time for reasons we know not), Sony has released two new PlayStation sites created by Zugara. The two sites offer visitors mini Navy Seal Missions introduced by former real life Navy Seal Rob Roy. After viewing a brief explanation Roy about how a four-man team needs to work with a two-man team, visitors are asked to complete a reconnaissance mission on the FireTeam Bravo 2 site. Once the recon work is completed, a four-man assault mission on the Combined Assault site becomes unlocked, and players are automatically deep-linked back to that site's Crosstalk section so that you can lead the assault team.
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- Bayer has consolidated its $200 million media buying and planning with Initiative. Previously, OMD handled planning.
- Talent Zoo is re-introducing the Naked Career with Sally Hogshead and the first interview will be with Seth Godin will discuss the industry's need for reinvention.
- Google buys in-game ad firm Adscape. Is there anything Google isn't going to buy?
It was only a matter of time before a game as fun as Crazy Taxi would reincarnate in ad promo form. That's what Nokia has done for its interactive film/game The Passenger, which is pretty engaging. The music ain't bad either.
You're a driver on the night streets of Paris when a sultry woman hops in and urgently asks to be transported to three addresses. At aid is the Nokia Multimedia Car Kit CK-20W, a nifty GPS-stocked device, but follow directions or your passenger will throw insults at you. Don't you love doing life-saving favours for people who get all bitchy?
The game was put together by the interesting mindfolk at Hyper Happen, Fuel Industries and Karbon Arc, and features footage of Paris shot just last November. Thanks Netanel for the tip. We don't want to sound too excited but this would make a pretty decent (if really, really short) standalone video game. Then again, we're not actually gamers, we're biased ad people, so we imagine actual joystick jockeys are rolling their eyes in disgust right now.
Any campaign with the tagline "it's always big" generally finds us paying a bit more attention to it than others and this new Colle+McVoy-created Minnesota State Lottery television campaign has us very interested. But, not for the sick reasons dancing around in your head right now. No. We like this campaign because it's a game. And it's game, called What's the Difference, that starts on the tube and ends online. In the ads, the viewer is asked to find the six differences between two images in the ad that represent a $20 million jackpot winner and a $200 million winner. Winners of the game are entered into a drawing to win cash and prizes.
With everyone in the industry latching onto the latest and greatest ad babble term of the day, engagement, it's nice to see something real come out of board room blather. We're giving props to Colle+McVoy on this one. See the ads here, here and here.
There's something inherently funny trying to get somebody to laugh who can't on pain of death, or at least hurt pride.
This is the inspiration for Royal Guard Cheese, a game where you try to induce a guard to laugh with well-placed props that include a feather, a rubber ducky and a teddy bear. Getting him to laugh like this could win you a free trip to London.
STA, are you paying attention? Just kidding. You know we love you.
Long the symbol of manhood for geeks of all generations, the traditional Rubik's Cube gets dolled-up for ... well, we're not sure who for. Anybody who likes the Rubik's Cube likes it for its original frustrating merits and the countless number of secret solutions that have been passed from geek to geek for centuries.
Nonetheless, somebody thinks the Cube's appeal can be improved with bright blinking lights, programmed electronic games, multiplayer play and a new name: Rubik's Revolution. That's flashy. But if you're going to tamper with an original by making it all pretty and blinky, at least put a prize in the middle. And not just any prize. We're thinking Stella Artois chalice of beer, here. Otherwise, why bother?
Not that we didn't think it was a big joke in the first place but as the furor over Boston's Cartoon Network guerrilla campaign subsides, the predictable trend of spoofs and games has begun. Boing Boing points to Save Boston, a whack-a-mole style game in which you gain points by clicking on the light bright/moonite objects as they dart in and out of Boston's architecture. Depending upon how many Moonites you get, you are graded by hairstyle. Some one send this to Mayor Menino.
It's become part of the 20-something cliche to leave college and see the world. That's why we think the STA Travel 193 campaign by Night Agency is doing so well. Upon the contest's end a winner will be selected to become a "world traveler" over a two-person trip to four countries.
The campaign features a little Flash globe with clickable videos where you can watch people talk about their experiences in a given country. It's a little like being back in college again, watching those EAP kids give speeches about how their lives have changed forever post beer-chug in Munich.
With next to no media money spent this invitation has garnered over 6000 leads for STA in its first week. Now how can we possibly have an immigration problem when everybody's just raring to leave?
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